Learning To Breathe
by Renegon
Summary: The Reapers might have been destroyed, but that doesn't mean that Shepard's job is over. The world is changing around the Captain of the Normandy and her crew, and as they recover and rebuild, they must find where they fit in it. Shakarian with appearances from the rest of the crew. Bits of fluff, bits of humour, bits of kink and bits of angst, all exploring the aftermath ME3.
1. Chapter 1

**a/n**_: Just one of those games that carries on in your head long after you've finished it for me, so I guess this is a little attempt for me to make some of those thoughts linear. A note on the Shepard; fem shep, default build. Vanguard and paragon with a dash of Renegade here and there. A note on Garrus; I have used what information has been made available on Turian physiology, combined with inspiration from the many ME fics there are out there, of which I might compile a list at some point of things I think held some heavy sway, although there are so many that may prove difficult! Their speech is described as involving 'flanging' which I understood to mean using (usually) complementary sub-harmonics to add tone, emotion etc., which I have seen in a number of other fics. More notes as they become relevant, I guess.. wouldn't want to give away too much._

_This first chapter will likely seem quite disjointed, but it will come together (I hope!). I also apologise for any errors of jarring bits, I have no beta as things stand other than my own proof reading._

**Disclaimer**_: I do not own the ME Universe or anyone in it, if I did I would have been nicer to them in the end :P_

* * *

Pain. Searing pain flooded her senses as she wheezed a small, rattling breath. She tried to swallow but her throat felt dry and charred, the air too thick to pass. Her head was too heavy to lift, and she could only manage to open her eyes by the most minute of degrees, because even the dim, fading light was blinding. Feeling her head roll to the side, a groan stuck in her throat as rubble pressed against the skin on the side of her face. Was it burnt? She couldn't distinguish anything from the overwhelming pain.

'Did it work?' She wondered. Her ears were ringing, she couldn't hear any weapons, any screaming, any movement over the deafening screech. It was disorienting, she felt as though she was too heavy and too light at the same time, both pinned against the debris and swimming through it all at once.

It was too much. The shallow, ragged breaths weren't enough. Hard as she tried to stay awake, to find out what had happened, as suddenly as she had woken she was unconscious again.

""""""""""""""""""""""""""

"We've got another one! N7, possibly Hammerhead! We've done what we can but goddess knows what happened to her! Third degree burns to at least 70% of the body, possibly more, mostly on the left side. A lot of fractures and breaks, I couldn't even give it a number. Evidence of extensive cybernetic implants - someone clean up those tags so we can pull up her medical records so we know what we're working with here! Whatever they are, they may well save her life."

The purple skinned Asari barked commands, half into her Omni-tool and half to the team of doctors they had at their make-shift hospital, as her team carefully transferred their survivor from the stretcher to a bed. She'd need a transfer right away to one of the more permanent sites that had survived the attack, but this would have to do for now.

She glanced around, the beds of their camp disturbingly empty, punching in a few commands to her Omni-tool, she checked what the other teams had found. She assumed they hadn't all been booked in, what she was reading didn't seem quite right. "Have we found any more? How much more ground do we have to cover?"

"Only four, Captain, although teams Delta and Kappa have yet to report back. Help me get what's left of this armor off, it's very damaged, multiple sources by the looks of it."

'Four?!' Trying to keep her face impassive, she moved over to the bed and took the dispenser offered by the doctor, presumably some sort of solution to try to separate it from the skin without causing further damage – it was times like this she wished she'd paid more attention in medical training. "Damn it, we should have started looking sooner. We should have gotten straight out here"

Her face must have given her away, the doctor looked up. "I hope I'm not overstepping the mark here, ma'am, but don't beat yourself up about this. The wreckage needed to settle. We could have killed all four of them by causing a collapse yesterday."

"You're right. I know." She nodded, and they resumed work, another doctor working on her bullet wounds.

A radio buzzed in the background, "Captain, Delta here, we found a group of civillians in a basement in our sector. Five children, four adults relatively unharmed, three casualties fighting Cannibals and a Marauder. They managed to hide for weeks down there until the final fight."

The doctor smiled up at her, somewhat grimly. "See Captain? Take what we can find from this. Don't give up."

"Uh, guys." One of the more junior doctors called over from the workbench she was at, "You're not gonna believe who this is. I just cleaned up those tags."

""""""""""""""""""""""""""

If he had thought the hospital had been busy when he started out as an intern all those years ago, nothing would have prepared Dr Cazden for the chaos that filled the intact wards of what had been a relatively quiet hospital away from the capital. Scrolling through a datapad with one hand to check up on his patient's progress, and talking into the terminal in his office was not quite respite he'd hoped for on his break, but some things were more important. The orders to keep a close, personal eye on this case came in from far above his pay bracket from people he had only heard about on the news before this patient had been rushed in by a squad of Asari.

"We've traced the implants back to a Miranda Lawson, thankfully she was still on planet and should be with us shortly to help get those cybernetics back up to full capacity. She's currently undergoing a procedure to fit some pins in her left leg – it was severely damaged, possibly by whatever the hell kind of explosion she was in, possibly by re-entry with the debris – but she's stable. Still not conscious, but the levels of brain activity are a good sign."

"That's good news, lord knows the crew could use it. They were going crazy here while comms were being repaired."

"How extensive is the damage? I know you have injured crew, and I hate to call her away, but Lawson requested Chakwas to oversee procedures."

"It wasn't an easy landing, but we mostly need to restore systems. We… we lost EDI – our AI, that is. Our pilot… Well, he's taking it quite hard. The engineers are doing what they can, but no one knew the Normandy like EDI, and no one knew EDI like Joker."

"Hackett is sending a rescue team to you as soon as possible. They left two days ago. FTL shouldn't take them too long, though obviously without the relays… Just hang in there. Keep them busy."

"Yes. I will." There was a pause over the line. The doctor was about to cut the conversation short when Traynor continued. "Forgive the question, but there are plenty of people who need help right now… why are we getting special treatment?"

He sighed, rubbing his face tiredly with one hand, remembering by rote what he had been told and had since repeated to several junior doctors who didn't want to take time away from the other patients they had who needed it, who asked the same question as the officer on the other side of the line.

"The Reapers might be gone, but this is far from over. Humanity is at its lowest right now and we have got a long way to go to pick up the pieces and rebuild. It can all be done, but it will take time, time that some people do not want to wait. They are going to be frightened, they are going to be restless, and some of them are going to start trouble and spread unrest. Throughout the war Shepard was their icon, the Normandy and her crew were part of that." Traynor started at that, but he cut her short. She'd had enough of the propaganda, hell, he was tired enough of repeating it, time to cut the crap. "You were a part of that, Samantha, don't sell yourself short. All of you are legends, there are millions of people out there who know all of you by name and know that all of you, with Shepard, united the galaxy and destroyed the Reapers. They need to know that some things have stayed the same. That you – and they – can be right in the middle of this big old shit storm and come out on top… Put bluntly, they need their Poster Girl."

"You better have a better line for her when she wakes, you know." The woman sighed, "She was never one for all of the political stuff. Always better with a gun in her hand than a camera in her face."

Grimacing, the doctor shifted uncomfortably. Given how insistent his superiors seemed to be that Shepard be exactly how everyone remembered her, he could hazard a guess that there would be a lot of that to come. "I'll pass on the message."

"Oh I doubt that it needs to be said. Alright, we're having a go at getting the Drive Core running, I need to head out. Hopefully we'll be with you soon."

"Good luck, Traynor."

"And you, Dr Cazden. Get our girl well again."

""""""""""""""""""""""""""

The skycar could not move fast enough. It could be moving faster than the speed of light and get him there in a heartbeat and it would still not be fast enough. He wanted to be there already, yesterday even. Flexing he stretched his broken leg gingerly, the splint on it still stiff. It was still better than the cast had been, and he was thankful that the scarring from the burns was not too extensive – still an ugly, sprawling mess along his right side, but no permanent damage from those.

Garrus looked intently at the holographic display of the passing scenery outside, though it did him little good. He had no idea where they were or how far they had to go. Absentmindedly, he scratched behind one of his mandibles. The minute they had entered the atmosphere, Chakwas had been taken away on a shuttle straight to the hospital, the rest of the crew had to go to the Dry Dock with the Normandy and wait to be cleared.

That wait had been agonising. He had waited enough.

He had waited in the med-bay, paralyzed with grief while the doctor tried to treat his and the other survivors' injuries. He didn't care about the state of the ship following the crash – she had been at the centre of that explosion. He wished it had taken him with her.

When they had finally got communications back online, he had waited for news. He had waited for someone to put him out of his misery or to give him a ray of hope. His leg had been strapped up and set, but still he refused to leave his bed in the med bay and lay on his side, facing the wall. Chakwas had tried to coax him into taking some exercise only to be snarled at and dismissed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her shake her head sadly. No anger, no offense taken. The look of pity had made him feel worse, and he was glad that she had left the room before the keens of pain had started again. She wouldn't have understood, if she had even managed to hear them as some members of her species could, but it wouldn't have taken a genius to interpret them.

Just when he was beginning to give up hope, Traynor gathered them all in the Mess Hall for what she called some exciting news. He hadn't wanted to attend, but she insisted, and she promised him that it would be worth the time. What she had said had set the keening off again before he could supress it, but for an entirely different reason. He felt giddy, his heart pounding in his chest. Next to him, Tali squealed and threw her arms around his neck, thankfully on his left side. Opposite him Liara had her face in her hands, openly crying with a huge grin on her face, and Kaiden was chatting excitedly to Traynor, asking all the questions that Garrus couldn't vocalise about her condition. All he could do was sing his sub-harmonics and stare. Shepard was alive.

He had thought that the waiting had been excruciating when he didn't know, but while he was running – well, limping – around like a madman in engineering trying to help get the ship running again, every minute longer the algorithms took than usual to complete seemed to take hours, and every sequence seemed to stretch on longer than the next. Eventually Tali had gotten impatient to the contant anxious noises (her suit translator seemed to pick up on them) and had banished him to help with the physical repairs. Garrus much preferred this; they kept him more occupied. He might have claimed the Thanix Canon as his own and filled his spare time with calibrations during the war, but he had plenty of more pleasant thoughts to fill the time between the fiddly bits then.

By the time they were airborne and travelling at what felt like a crawl compared to the relay-boosted flight they were used to, he was going out of his mind with imagining the extent of her injuries, and the thought of her all alone in those stark-white hospitals he knew she hated, hooked up to spirits knew what. He couldn't even imagine what Joker was going through. A couple of days after the rescue team had gotten them off the ground and began their escort, Hackett had arrived on board for the memorial service. While he had he bittersweet experience of tossing the nameplate that had been pre-emptively prepared for Shepard in the trash, he remembered the way their fragile pilot had broken down, refused to put EDI's name on the wall and locked himself in the AI Core. Tali, and Miranda, when consulted in some downtime from her stint in the hospital with Shepard, were certain that if they could extract the Reaper IFF from their most recent back-up they could get her back online. Her mobile unit had some blown circuitry, but nothing beyond repair. This, however, was little comfort to Jeff as he sat, alone, in the cockpit, trying not to feel the sting as he monitored all of their systems manually and pointedly did not glance to his right, where he was used to seeing her silvery form.

"We're here"

Cortez' voice snapped him back to the present. A large, grey building drew closer on the front display, the top couple of floors black and charred, but on the whole looking stable. He wondered which of the dimly lit windows her room was.

The doors whirred, and the doctor that Traynor had let him speak to was waiting on the landing pad with a couple of soldiers. He climbed out and extended a hand. Turians did not necessarily shake hands, but he knew from his time at C-Sec, let alone aboard the Normandy, that it was a well-established human gesture. "Dr Cazden, I presume?"

"Yes, Garrus Vakarian?" He took the offered hand and shook it, "If you could come with me, please, she's just had surgery to repair some of her implants. There were… complications."

While they were striding quickly across the landing pad, mentally everything froze. He clamped his mandibles tight and swallowed. There were a couple of Turians around the hospital and his nerves would be showing enough without accidentally singing it. "What kind of complications?"

"She's on a lot of medication for various things at the moment, and she experienced a negative reaction the anaesthesia. We're still trying to pin-point exactly what happened, but she's struggling to breathe." He pushed the door open and led him to an elevator. "She's still stable, but it's a lot more of a fight to keep her that way. We're hoping that the repairs we made should start taking over soon, but we have no way of knowing if the procedure worked."

He felt himself stiffen and swallowed. The idea of her being a guinea pig didn't agree with him in the slightest, but he didn't see what other options there were. "I take it this is our only option?"

The doctor shuffled uncomfortably. They arrived at their floor and he strode ahead again. "We can't remove the cybernetics, and I don't think we can successfully graft all of the tissue she needs to regenerate without them. I'll be blunt, Lieutenant Vakarian; she's in a bad way and I am not entirely sure what we can do for her short of keeping her the way she is right now.. To me, this is all experimental."

A familiar voice interrupted ahead of them. "Luckily for me, this is all old hat."

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Garrus' head shot up, and he recognised Miranda ahead of him, her hair pulled out of her face and a visor similar to his over one eye, presumably to help her in the procedures, and a white coat over her usual suit. She reached out to shake a hand, but he pulled her in for a brief hug, which seemed to shock her a little. "Easy there, big guy."

"Thank you for this Miranda. No offence, Doc, but I wouldn't trust her in anyone else's hands."

Miranda smirked a little and shrugged one shoulder. "Neither would I, Garrus. Neither would I. Thank you for your help, Cazden. I've got it from here, Karin is inside with her now."

The man nodded and hurried away, seeming glad to be dismissed. "Now, before I let you in, I want to warn you; he's right. She isn't looking good, but speaking from experience I've seen her a hell of a lot worse." She gave a dark chuckle, "Hell, it's always pleasant to be working with her while she has a pulse."

He fidgeted awkwardly, having very good hearing, she also picked up on what she interpreted as a nervous trill, and put a reassuring hand on his forearm, in spite of not really being one for that kind of thing. "Relax, Vakarian. I've got this. I'll admit it's a little hit and miss with her cybernetics. The procedure was entirely new when we did it the first time, and the Alliance doesn't have quite have the exhaustive resources I am used to, but the groundwork is there. Stumped as Cazden seems to be by everything, he's not got quite the experience Chakwas and I have with her. Shep has just been Shep and blown some circuitry through her affinity for explosions."

He did seem to take some comfort in that, at least the pining hum had lessened. "The only issue we have for the moment is getting her awake. Last time that was the hardest part, although she had suffered a lot more brain injury before. Lord knows how she missed out on that this time, but we've not really had to touch her much in that department. Broken bones will mend, she'll have physio etcetera, and eventually we'll get everything regenerating in the burns department. However we're struggling to get much of a reaction to outside stimulus, much less get her conscious. I mean, I prefer her under for now while she's going through the worst of it, but we can't put off the problem forever. That's where you come in."

He folded his arms and clenched his fists tightly, resting his weight on his good leg. "You think she might respond to me?"

"I can call Alenko if you'd prefer…" She teased, trying to lighten the mood. However at the look of panic that spread across his features she ended that joke there. "But I think you're our best shot. Anyone could see how close the two of you were."

He just nodded in reply, but the damn humming started up again. She began to push the door open to lead him in, but hesitated and turned back. Confident as she was in her own ability, maybe she wasn't preparing him enough for how it looked. "Are you ready? She doesn't look like she is in a good way."

Feeling slightly nauseous with anticipation, he rocked forward on his feet a little and nodded. "Yes."

Turning again, she pushed the door gently and headed in, holding the door open for him. "Please, trust me when I tell you I can help her, Garrus. I've seen her worse than this, and we need her now as much as we needed her then. All of us."

It was one thing to expect the worst, in spite of the confident woman's reassurances, but it was quite another to see her covered nearly head to toe in bandages with what seemed like endless numbers of wires and tubes feeding into her. Her left leg was raised with a heavy and uncomfortable looking metal frame around it, with a cast on the arm of the same side, and Garrus supposed that her left side had been the one to absorb most of whatever particular impact that had been. There was barely any skin to speak of on display, and he nearly doubled over as what he was seeing sunk in and the shock took over.

She bit a lip at the look of absolute shock and horror on his face and took a step back. In the back of her mind wondered if she was giving herself too much credit and him too much hope. Shaking her head slightly to rid herself of those thoughts, she pulled out a data pad and resolved to get back to work. 'Shepard has been worse' she reminded herself, settling at a desk she had set up in the corner of the room with a screen around it, much to the annoyance of the normal staff of the hospital, 'You've done it before, you can do it again.'

The feeling of guilt didn't quite leave her though as she tried to ignore the background noise of the various machines and the new visitor her patient had. She pressed a few more buttons on her omni-tool to turn off the translator completely for now. There were some things she didn't need to know or hear.


	2. Chapter 2

**a/n**: I'm hoping this one is starting to seem more connected than the last one, onwards! Still kinda angsty, but hey, she's still in hospital, bear with me :P It is, at least, more than twice the length of the last, and probably somewhere between the two is where the usual length will be.

As a side note, rather than a collection of one shots, their history up to here has turned into a story, because there were so many things I wanted to change slightly or pad out for them. A bit backwards to write a prequel after, but eh.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own the Mass Effect universe. If I did, Shakarian would be canon.

* * *

The first time that Shepard had regained consciousness was many weeks later. Garrus had slowly, but without much subtlety, moved into her room, much against the admonitions of the nurses. He spent most of his time sleeping in the chair next to her bed or sat at her bedside whispering softly to her. Eventually Miranda had taken pity on him and taken over the room next door for a workstation and set up a cot behind the screen she had been using.

It was a week or two after she had some of her bandages removed to reveal the red and raw skin where her skin grafts had been, with a soft, orange glow underneath some of the less healed areas, showing where her cybernetics were beginning to take over and speed up the process. If Turians cried, he would have at the sight of her beautiful red hair shaved back, patchy in places, and a breathing tube still fed down her throat while her lungs and throat recovered. The closest way he could describe the feeling was a choking pressure in the chest he could barely keep down without wailing and growling it out, and he had to clench from head to toe to stay quiet, breathing heavily. It was a bittersweet moment. On the one hand it was hideous to see the woman he cared about so deeply, in this nearly unrecognisable condition. The woman who he had spent countless hours lovingly committing to memory every curve of her body, every freckled inch of her skin, and every scar. On the other, he could finally see some improvement, some sign that she was going to get through this.

Some Alliance brass he didn't recognise, probably promoted in the wake of the war, had just stopped by to see how she was doing. They had spent several minutes at her bed side talking in hushed tones with Dr Chakwas and Miranda, pouring over their treatment plans on datapads, occasionally looking over his shoulder at where Garrus perched on the edge of his cot. It wouldn't be anything he didn't already know, so he wasn't certain why they were being so secretive. He clamped his mandibles down over his indignation, grinding his teeth. Hadn't she done enough for them? Couldn't she at least recover in peace?

Eventually they had all gone about their business, and he had reassumed his position at the bedside, very gently covering her small, bandaged hand with his and began his routine of quietly chatting nonsense to her.

"What was all that about, eh, Shep? Can't give you a moment's rest, can they?"

"Personally, I'm hoping they were here about those early retirement plans we always used to talk about – you know, somewhere tropical and quiet? Somehow I doubt it, but one can hope."

"So I was talking to Tali earlier, she's been asked to join the team of scientists working on restoring the tech that is broke after the Crucible activated. Officially she's working on the Sol system relay, headed out there this week, but she says she's been assigned to a team that is working on extracting Reaper code from AI. They're looking at EDI for a smaller scale project and hoping they can use what they learn there to reactivate the Geth. Guess that means the Normandy is being moved."

"She's asked me not to say anything to Jeff, she doesn't want to get him too excited, and I wish that you could tell me what you think right now, Jane, because I can't imagine how I'd feel if I didn't know you were here, that there was even a slither of hope I'd get you back. All those weeks on the ship thinking I'd lost you were hell, and it's been months now. I… I don't know that I could have gone on that long."

He swallowed and lowered his head trying to push that dark place to the back of his mind, moving to carefully stroke the short hair that had begun to grow back as her skin became less raw. It was ruddier and coarser than it used to be, which had distressed him when he first noticed it, but Dr Chakwas had promised him it would eventually be just the way he remembered it.

"It kind of got to be a running joke with us, didn't it? How I'm a bad Turian, that is. Well, if I'd not known it before, I knew it then. I couldn't think of the collective. I couldn't think of anyone but myself. Of you. I didn't want to get out of bed, much less help them with the repairs. I just didn't see the point in it all. It was selfish. It was the most selfish I had ever felt and I didn't even remotely care. No Vakarian without Shepard, and I didn't have you. Couldn't… Couldn't even meet you at the bar."

His voice wavered a little, and he pulled his hand back and hunched over, clasping both in between his knees instead, clenching tightly. "I'm sorry, Shepard. I know I said I was trying to keep positive for you, but talking to her just brought it all back. I've got you here in front of me, and I can see that you're doing better, but I am terrified."

Sitting back up, he took her hand again. He needed to feel her there, feel her fingers, so tiny compared to his huge clumsy claws, something familiar and comforting. "I'm terrified that I'm going to lose you again. There's so much I never told you, so many things we never did. I-I don't even know where to begin."

"I need you to wake up, Jane. I'm so scared I'll never get to tell you. I love you Jane. Please wake up."

And just like every other night, he fell asleep keening softly to himself, face down on the side of the bed.

Much later, he woke with a start, his back and neck stiff and sore, heart racing. Another nightmare. Another waste of good sleep. It was dark outside now, and the lights along the corridor had been lowered, but he was wide awake, and in no mood to hurry back to his dreams. Stretching, his eyes darted over to the monitor displaying her vitals, and raked a talon through her hair again. "Sorry, Shep. Falling asleep on duty again."

Hand in hers as usual, he rested his bad leg up on one of the bars underneath her bed and stared at the stars outside the window. He wondered what they looked like where she had grown up, if she'd looked up at them as a child and known that one day she'd fly so far beyond them. Though he knew her like the back of his hand, there was so much he didn't know about her. "They're all so different to the ones you can see from Palaven." He wondered out loud. "No less beautiful, of course."

He was so busy staring intently out of the window, he nearly missed the squeeze on the finger he had resting in her hand. When it did finally register, Garrus nearly fell out of his chair, wincing as he knocked his right leg against the underside of the bed. Jumping up, heart in his mouth with both excitement and anxiety, he met a pair of striking green eyes wide with fright, and hurried to soothe her as she struggled against all the wires and her breathing tube. "Shepard, Shepard! Jane! Look at me! It's ok. It's ok!" He stroked her hair again, and she looked him in the face, the panic lessening as she managed to focus on something familiar.

Taking brief pause, he tapped his omni-tool urgently, sending messages to Miranda and Chakwas. Really, he ought to have gone to get them himself, but he could hardly stand the thought of letting her out of his sight. He heard her whimpering as he pressed send and took her hand again. He didn't know what to say. Weeks on end of wishing she could hear him, and now he couldn't shift the lump in his throat. Hanging his head in shame, he leant forward and gently lifted her hand to his chest so she could feel the gentle hum there from his sub-vocals. Her head dipped minutely in an attempt at a nod.

There was a clatter from the hallway and the two doctors came running in, shortly followed by Miranda, pulling on her coat as she went. Mutely, he took a few steps back and let them work, making sure to stay where Shepard could see him. He could feel his mandibles spread wide in a grin, There were no words for the relief.

She was awake. She was going to be alright.

""""""""""""""""""""

It was still days before they could talk. She drifted in and out of consciousness, breathing tube still in place, and doctors and nurses coming in and out, checking up on her, administering treatments and medications, changing her bandages and slowly, but surely, peeling away the dressings to let the pink and shiny new skin breathe.

Often she woke up, distressed and plagued by nightmares and grief, and he would whisper to her, and resume raking his talons through her short crop of hair, holding her hand as tightly as he dared without hurting her. He wanted to scoop her up and cradle her to him, she was so fragile and looked tinier than usual in that bed. Instead he just stayed with her until she drifted back to sleep, peaceful at last.

It started slowly at first, a few words here or there when they decided she was breathing strongly enough on her own to switch to a line of oxygen in her nose. One night he was lying awake restlessly on his cot, keeping one eye on Shepard's sleeping form and the other on his omno-tool while he softly tapped replies to some messages. One for Solana, giving her and his father an update on where he was and how Jane was doing, another for Tali, asking how her transfer to the relay went, and what the team she was working on was like. Garrus had been very neglectful of his friends while she was at her worst, even when they had come to visit before duty called them away, and now he could breathe easy again, he felt he should try to make amends for his selfishness.

A small, croaky voice snapped his attention back to the room.

"Garrus?"

He jumped up, startled, gangly limbs tripping him up in his less than graceful dismount from the low bed, mentally berating himself for allowing his anxiety to turn him into such a clumsy fool. Correcting himself, he was at her side in a moment. She had a weak, strained smile on her face, and her chest twitched a few times as she fought a laugh. It brought some small comfort to see she was well enough to be amused by his misfortune.

"Yes Jane?" He asked, unable to reign in the wide grin of his splayed mandibles at hearing her voice again. It might not have been that assertive, musical tone he craved, but it was a start.

She struggled for a minute, swallowing hard. "Water."

Nodding, he ran a talon carefully along the less sore side of her jaw. Every little improvement, each proof that she was making a recovery made him want to sing. "Just a moment, Shep."

Gradually, she got stronger and could hold small conversations. She would get tired very quickly, and she still slept a lot, which made Garrus wonder whether he was taxing her too much with his presence rather than helping. He never mentioned this to her, and their conversations never strayed to territory deep enough to address his being here. Perhaps it didn't need to be said, to him it was the plainest thing in the world that he had meant every word he said in London and that he never wanted to let her out of his sight again, but a paranoid part of his brain wondered if it wasn't some sort of war time duress that made _her_ say all those things.

Shepard wasn't stupid though, she could tell there was something up.

It was a sunny day outside, and Garrus was (somewhat messily) attempting to help her with her lunch, as the bones in her right arm were not quite ready for her to be using it, and her left was still very shaky. Combine this with her current diet of soups until she could manage anything more, and she would likely be wearing, not consuming her lunch.

Of course, Turians didn't eat soup, and if they did, they would not use a spoon. Accidentally spilling it on her chest again, though thankfully he'd had the presence of mind to put a napkin there this time, he swore loudly in his own language. Swallowing, gratefully, she shook her head. "Jesus Garrus, you're a lousy lunch lady."

"Whose bright idea was it to make meat and vegetables a liquid? A paste, I could understand, but this seems impractical." He was too irritated, probably more with himself than the soup, to acknowledge she called him a lady.

"I'm taking your rifle away the minute I am out of here. Good with your hands, what a lie."

His bright blue eyes darted up to hers, and he clicked his mandibles at her, flicking the fingers on the hand not holding the soup at her, which he had compared once to flipping her the bird. Dipping the utensil back in the bowl on her tray, he slowly raised it again, making it closer this time, when an errant drop of it fell to the right of her jaw and chin. It was somewhat a struggle to swallow and supress a giggle at the same time, and she spluttered, making it worse.

"Ah, damn it." He picked up the napkin and carefully wiped it off her, his hand coming to rest against the still scarred and healing cheek. Shepard leaned her head into the heat of his palm, slightly leathery, but still softer than the most of his unplated skin. He felt her stare burning into him.

At length, she spoke. "I guess we match now, don't we?"

Nodding mutely, he picked the spoon back up, but was still visibly tense. If he had been having trouble before, it was near impossible now the way his hand was shaking. Putting it down, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, grinding his teeth. "Sorry. I'll be alright a second."

"What's wrong?"

Opening them again, her eyes were still fixed on him. "I don't think now is the best time."

She sighed. "When is going to be a good time? When you've let it fester for a few months longer? Body might be pretty broken, Garrus, but my brain is working just fine."

"I love you." He said simply, his second voice faltering a little. He did not relax a single muscle though, and continued watching her carefully, his brow plates pulled as tightly as they would go.

"I love you too. Nothing has changed" She smiled, "I don't think that's it though. Come on, Vakarian, there should be no secrets between us."

He fidgeted awkwardly, and Shepard cocked a sparse, patchy eyebrow. It was like their relationship had regressed to when she used to have to drag things out of him. Understandable, but frustrating. "Garrus please… Every time I close my eyes I- I see it all over again. I know I'm not the only one. And I didn't see nearly as much as you did in the end."

Sinking back into the chair next to the bed, she could just about make out a high pitched keen as he put his head in his hands. As a general rule, Turians didn't do emotion. They were stoic, faced their problems logically and worked out the solution that worked for the greatest number of people. It had frustrated her at first. She had believed for a while that it was all she could ever hope for, knowing that she couldn't hear him properly like his own kind, but aside from her experience coaxing him out of his shell, so to speak, her interactions with other Turians during the war had taught her that sometimes, things were too much even for them to suffer in silence.

"I thought I'd lost you. Again."

His voices converged in a combination of sadness and anger that stung at first, but she knew it wasn't aimed at her. Jane stared at the back of his bowed head and ached to rub soft circles on the hide there, and press gently under his fringe the way he liked, to hold him and promise that she would never leave again. All she could do, however, was lie there uselessly and listen.

"I wished I'd never left you. Everything around us was dead or wrong and there was nothing I could do and none of it mattered"

He shifted, so his head was on the mattress next to her, reaching for the hand on the side he was on, the way he seemed to fall into a fitful sleep most nights, as close to her as he could physically get at the moment. "I can't get it out of my head, Jane. I can't stop picturing watching you running towards that beam. I can't stop hearing you say goodbye. And all of that is layered over the blood, the death, the screaming. Those… those _things._ Those twisted evil things. I can barely sleep, and if I do there is no rest for me.

"And yet you're here, and you're alive, and you're getting better by the day. I feel like I am going to pop a plate with the relief, and then I feel sick with myself for being happy when everything is in ruins. For laughing and joking with you. I feel sick for feeling like I can finally live."

She squeezed his fingers as best she could, tears streaking her face, the only way she could vent trapped, almost paralyzed on the bed as she was. "Garrus, we've got a long way to go, but I promise you this: we will be ok. We can get through this. I'm not going anywhere. Look at me, Garrus, Lord knows I can't pull you about the way I'm used to."

He lifted his head, his throat tight with the despair he felt welling up inside him, her bleary eyes mirroring that feeling. "We're both soldiers, love." His mandibles flickered at the rare use of pet names, and he gave a quick trill, sparking the agonising paradox of happiness and anguish all over again, but held her gaze. "We know the drill. We keep on fighting even when the battle is won and there is no one left to fight. It's a pep talk you get in basic. It won't ever go away, I don't need to tell you that, but it will get easier. You don't _ever_ have to feel alone and like you can't talk to me." Her voice got sterner and more strained at the same time. How humans made do with a single tone he would never understand. She was crying quite freely now, and remembering a few extranet searches in the beginning of their relationship, he dimly wished he had that kind of hormonal vent. "I'm not going anywhere. I meant every word I said to you, Garrus. There's no Shepard without Vakarian, right?" She bit her lip and looked at her chest taking a shaky breath.

Standing, Garrus leant down and softly pressed his forehead against hers, moving her hand to his chest. It wasn't a standard gesture in his culture, but it was something he liked to do to bridge the gap in their communication she couldn't quite make on her own, unable to hear certain things he was feeling the way others might. They stayed like that for a long time, even when his back and still healing leg began to ache.

"Fuck, I hate being stuck like this." She grumbled, eventually. He stood and gently began to wipe her tears, trying not to chafe the more delicate areas of her skin. "I need a hug, you bastard. When did I become emotionally dependant on your scaly hide?"

"When you finally realised I was the best thing to ever happen to you and came to me for some sweet Turian lovin'." He pressed his mouth plates to her forehead - another adopted habit - and scooped up the now lukewarm bowl of soup. "I'm gonna go heat this up and throw some more of it at you, see if you can catch any this time." Seeing her yawn, he raised a finger threateningly. "You can sleep when you've eaten. I'll just be a second."

When he got outside the room, he stopped, leaning back against the wall, and heaved a great sigh. It had been some relief to talk to her, but that didn't stop the constant battle between a gaping emptiness and swelling pride in every fibre of his being.

They still had a long way to go.

""""""""""""""""""""

When it began, the physical therapy was nearly as bad as the nightmares she faced every night, another glaring reminder that nothing would go back to the way it was without hard work. At first the return of some slight mobility had been a good thing, because the first thing she did when she was finally encouraged to try to take a few slow steps was veer straight off from the doctor she was meant to be heading towards and give her favourite Turian as long a hug as she could possibly withstand. Though the use of her arms had come back before that of her legs, it hadn't been the same to do it while she was stuck, immobile, in the bed, and she just needed the extra closeness and flush of warmth that came with being pressed tightly against him. The therapist had given her a disapproving lecture, and Shepard shot him a look that was purely the Commander again, before defiantly (though slowly) walking the extra distance over to him. To her credit, she made it about three-quarters of the way before she stumbled, Garrus hovering just behind to catch her.

After that initial display however, the real work had begun, and even Garrus wouldn't allow her to distract herself from it. She needed to get everything working again, and unlike their time on the Normandy, pulling her away every now and then wasn't respite, it was detrimental. When she had complained that she was too tired or too achy, he had reminded her that it was only for short stretches every day, and it was better now than for a lifetime. While she hadn't lost a great deal of muscle mass, which he suspected was due to her enhancements, the long period of disuse had still taken its toll, and he much preferred the exhausted and sore Shepard to the one he had so often held and rocked gently as she cried with frustration and self loathing, having found something she couldn't do that had once come so simply to her.

Even her highly accelerated healing combined with the amazing things medicine could now accomplish, it had been nearly five months since the citadel, according to information he had gleaned from the news he managed to access on his omni-tool and Miranda's workstation when she could spare it, though he didn't care to guess how much of that he had spent stuck away from her. Chakwas told them both excitedly as often as they would hear it that her progress far outstripped what it would have been a century ago, though that was little comfort to someone who had spent the majority of their life in peak physical condition, and the past few years with the freedom to go where she pleased. Shepard was thoroughly bored of the hospital and wanted out.

"No one has even come to visit me." She whined, during one particularly low moment, where she had persuaded Garrus to climb up onto her bed so she could curl up against him. She was currently between his legs, leaning back against his chest.

Idly, he played with her fingers, holding both her hands in his own. "They did while you were asleep, Jane. You only missed Tali by a matter of days, as it happens. Things have been difficult for everyone, they've all been given assignments to help with the war effort, local though, I believe. On the relays, Earth or the Citadel. I think Liara said that she would be able to come back in around a week or so."

"They message you?" She asked, craning her neck to look back at him, missing her own omni-tool, burnt out with the blast.

"Would you like to see?" He offered, bringing his wrist up in front of her and activating it, opening his inbox for her. "There isn't a day that goes by where I don't wake up to pings from people asking about you."

Bringing her hands up automatically to use it, she hesitated, considering it. Although he had offered, it felt strange to be going through his messages. "You sure you don't mind? I don't want you to think I am checking up on you."

"Unlocked it, didn't I?" He shrugged behind her, nuzzling her hair. Also implant assisted, it was starting to resemble what he remembered of it.

She was quiet for a few minutes as she flicked through them. A small sniff and jerky breaths told him that she was crying, and he powered down the device and very, very gently shifted himself and picked her up so she was cradled across his lap. Shepard buried her head in the side of his neck, hand wringing the heavy cloth of his tunic at the cowl.

"They all think I'm such a hero, Garrus. Would they care as much if they knew what it took to get here? EDI? Legion and the Geth? I can't bear it. They're just machines to most people, dangerous at that. But I…" She trailed off and sighed. "I sacrificed them. I let them die."

As things stood, she still hadn't told him exactly what happened up there, but this was something that often came up when she woke from her nightmares or when her therapy didn't go very well and she began to feel like a failure. He still didn't know what to say to it, but held on to her all the tighter, giving a low 'purr' as she liked to call it to try to soothe her.

"And then I remember Mordin. Thane. Ashley. The countless others whose names I don't even know. How can I have saved so many billions, when all I can think about are those few? It's not fair." Lifting her head, she placed a hand on his mandible and stroked it gently. "I'm sorry, I'm going on again aren't I?"

"It's alright, I don't mind." He leaned his head into her touch. "You listened to me do the same about all of my shit from day one. I don't mind returning the favour."

He poked her on the nose lightly. "You just better cheer up though, Shepard. I distinctly getting a lot of flak for being so brooding."

Smiling, she prodded him right back, hand coming to rest at the base of his neck, idly rubbing the warm skin at the sides, working her way up to beneath his fringe. "I'd have died for each and every one of them Vakarian, but you? You I'd live for. You make it worth it."

He gave a low groan and a rumble. "Jane, keep your hands to yourself if you cannot behave."

Innocently picking up where she left off at the base of his neck, she rested her head on his shoulder again. "If you insist. I cannot wait to be out of here."

"It'll do you some good. I think it would cheer you up to see everything you worked for. Seeing everyone working together the way they are right now, it's… well, it's incredible."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know what you meant, Shepard."

"Ignoring it, then?" She teased.

"You know what else is incredible?" He murmured, lowering his voice, adopting the husky tone he knew provoked her intensely. "How quickly I could cheer you up given a couple of minutes of privacy."

She felt a shiver run through her and nipped his neck playfully. "Suddenly, I am a lot more keen to be strict in completing my exercises."

"I thought you might be." Garrus chucked. "Shall I call the doctor?"

""""""""""""""""""""

The days until Liara finally came to visit dragged by much the same as they had since she woke up. On one of the days, Shepard had woken up with a start from a nightmare only to find her room empty, something she'd never had before. It hadn't been more than a few minutes, however, when Garrus came rushing in, clearly having heard her from outside the room and hurried over to her, dropping the bag he was clutching on the chair and perching on the edge of her bed, scooping her up and to him.

"Oh, Jane, how long have you been awake? I thought I'd be back before you'd even notice I was gone. I'm sorry." He rubbed her back soothingly and hummed into the back of her neck until she was quiet and her breathing went back to normal.

"Was a nasty one." She grumbled, eventually. "Not the usual."

"Wanna tell me about it?" He offered, already knowing the answer.

As he'd expected, she shook her head violently. "No. Not yet."

Shepard shuffled a little, making herself more comfortable. The pain had gotten a little worse with how hard she was pushing herself in her physical therapy, and it made her quite restless, unable to stay in one position for very long because of the stiffness. Idly, she played with a fastening on the front of his tunic, and he noted with some satisfaction that her fine motor control was a lot better.

"Would you like to know what I got you?" He broke the silence, twisting a lock of hair between two talons.

"I certainly am curious what could make you break your bedside vigil." She admitted, fidgeting and eventually giving up and sitting back on the bed, her legs resting across his lap.

Leaning to pick his package back up, his mandibles flared, and she could tell he was pretty pleased with himself over this one. "It's only a small thing, but after our conversation the other day, I thought you might like a new Omni-Tool. Took a few days of snooping through records online for what you used to use, and I asked Miranda just to be sure, but it should be similar. Maybe even an upgrade once you've tinkered with it. Never been familiar with the bladed variety you like, but it sounds like the fabricator in that one packs a punch."

She opened the bag and grinned broadly, pulling out and flipping the box containing the device to check its specifications. "Christ, Garrus, how much did this set you back? This is nearly on-par with the Spectre grade one I had before."

Shrugging, he massaged the side of her right leg below the hip, feeling the usual knot that often bothered her beneath the tips of his fingers. "I _might_ have mentioned it to Hackett in passing that yours had fried. He had one ordered to a local outlet for me to pick up. I _might_ also have sent out a few messages last night to people saying that you'd soon be reconnected."

When he looked up from her leg beneath his hands however, she was staring at him, her lip trembling. "Don't you start that up, missus." His tone was playful, however, and he reached over and cupped the side of her face in his hand.

"What did I do to deserve you?"

"Would you like me to list alphabetically or chronologically?"

Not long after she had finished her breakfast, she had clipped it on around her forearm, fired it up and begun playing with the settings on it, hooking it up to her extranet and military profiles. She winced at the long list of mail she had to her public address, not even considering wading through those yet and checked her private address, feeling another heady rush of emotion as she saw the messages from more familiar names, not only from the night before and that morning, but stretching back for weeks, months, hoping that she was doing better and they would hear from her soon.

"I am such a mess." She chuckled, wiping her eyes with her knuckles, unable to stop herself from smiling at seeing some beginnings of life after all of the chaos that had led them here. "It's sickening."

"It's only natural after what you've been through. You should have heard me keening away while you were out. I think just about every Turian in town wanted to smother me in my sleep."

She continued skimming through for a while, she would be able to read them properly and reply later. Something he had said when he had let her browse his own inbox was niggling away at her. "Garrus, what you said before about everyone having their assignments-"

"I'm not going anywhere." He cut her off flatly. Looking up from the datapad he had been perusing in the chair next to the bed. He had moved and settled while she ate before.

"If you need to be somewhere, I don't want to keep you away from it. You've got your family and your own home to worry about, and what about the military? I don't want to kill your career here." Shepard fiddled with the edge of her blanket, her tone cautious. "I've taken so much from you, from all of you. I can't ask any more, it would be selfish."

Sighing, he perched on the side of the bed, switching off her new toy and taking both her hands in his. "What you're really asking is the same as what I asked you, you know that right?"

She bit her lip and looked out of the window. "Yes in some ways. No in others. It's different coming from me…"

"Jane, I am not here because I feel that I owe it to you, I am not here because anyone asked me to be here, and I am not here because I think that you need me." Carefully with one finger, he pulled her to face him, letting the hand rest there afterwards. "I am here because there is nowhere else in the universe that I would rather be, and the Hierarchy be damned if they can't let me be here right now. There wouldn't be a Hierarchy if it wasn't for you."

Turning her head, she kissed his palm. "Just wanted to be sure."

"Well, be sure." He ruffled her hair, mandibles clicking in amusement at her scowl as she fixed the mess. "And will you please read your damn messages, Shepard. I know there's one in there you'll definitely want to read before the end of the day."

"What surprises are you hiding now?" She asked suspiciously, pulling up the omni-tool again, scrolling through to see if any subject headings stuck out.

He gave a one-sided smile that always seemed quite wry to her, one brow plate cocked with it. "If you would care to recall a little more of the conversation we just discussed, you might remember that I told you that you'd soon have a visitor."

She squealed, a noise Garrus hadn't previously thought her capable of making and immediately opened her message from her dear friend the Shadow Broker.

""""""""""""""""""""

The arrival of Liara the next day came announced by her sudden move to a different private room that seemed to have been recently renovated when compared to the run down and battle worn other parts of the hospital that were still good for use. It was still a little dingy, but it was a lot more comfortable, with a holo screen she could pull up the news or some vids on and a much nicer bed, both one for her and one brought in for Garrus. The equipment around the room seemed much newer than that of the old room, with more things dotted around for her to stretch and exercise, and her lunch was far more agreeable, though Shepard still grimly remembered the soup weeks, as she had taken to calling them.

When the blue skinned Asari finally arrived, timidly hovering in the doorway, the two of them were sat on their beds playing some sort of strategy game on their omni-tools, pinging moves across the room at eachother, the news playing quietly in the background, a reporter gesturing over her shoulders at some construction work behind her.

"Everything is alright, I take it?" She asked, by way of greeting, eventually striding into the room and making a beeline straight for Shepard, her arms open wide, ready to embrace the woman. "It's so good to see you awake, Shepard, you had us all worried out of our minds!"

"Liara!" She exclaimed, shutting off their game and pulling her in for a tight squeeze. "I've missed you so much! Where have you been? How have you been doing? Tell me everything."

Somewhat more rigidly than usual, she moved to pull her legs up to her chest, and patted the end of the bed for the woman to sit, which she did, very carefully. "Well, trying to get my comms up and running, for a start. A lot of my agents are dead, but I still have enough on the grid scattered around to get moving. I've been quite the useless shadow broker up until recently, and right now I am limited to systems that are reasonably near to here – I have still managed to gather up some medical supplies and some funds that were tied up and unused around this system, of which you are reaping the benefits. Barely sleeping to manage that, of course, since officially I am still helping the Alliance as a scientist by day. Really, I would like to get back to Thessia, but there is a lot I can do here yet, and a lot I need to do."

Shepard had not liked to mention how drawn her friend looked, or the bags under her eyes, but it was hardly a surprise. "Is there any news? How are things looking?"

Liara sighed, and looked at her knees. "5 and a half billion people before all this, Shepard. We were a strong and proud people, but we… We were unfocused. Our version of your government was always strict in enforcing, but slow moving and unstructured." She sighed. "When you live for a thousand years, you learn to take decisions seriously and make them slowly. We never stood a chance. I don't know that I'm ready to go back. I don't care to number the estimated survivors. I don't even look at the data coming in for Thessia, Shepard. It goes straight on file. I have Glyph or intermediaries deal with it."

This surprised her somewhat. She had expected Liara to be upset about what had happened, to regret not being able to save more of her home, but the aura of shame as she spoke about her own people was heart-breaking. "You are still a strong and proud people, Liara." She reached across and put a hand on her knee, "If this has taught us anything, it is that none of our political systems are working. Look at everything we achieved working together, people are going to notice that and change will come. That doesn't mean you should give up on everything that made the Asari what they were, it just means that we all need to look at the best of eachother and take something away from it. Make the dead proud. Live for them, not in spite of them."

Nodding, she lifted her head, eyes misty, but a barely noticeable smile still tugging at the corners of her mouth. "You always do know the right thing to say, Shepard."

"If only she'd take her own advice." Garrus input, joining them, giving Liara a quick one armed hug. "Hanging on in there, T'Soni?"

She returned it, clasping his middle tightly before releasing him and wiping her eyes. "Just about, Vakarian. She's not been _wallowing_ has she? She's been spending too much time with you if she saves the universe and wastes her third – is it third? I think we're at that – chance at life wondering if she could have saved more."

Narrowing her eyes, Shepard crossed her arms. "Are here purely to gang up on me? If so, I retract what I just said. You're all stupid and spend too much time embracing eternity."

"We just know you too well. After all the time you spent saving us, we're just saving you from yourself." She said simply. "How are your nightmares?"

"Worse. Decline to comment. They offered me a psych evaluation to see if I needed specialist help, but I refused. If it comes to it, I'll have to rethink, but I have a lot to come to terms with, I don't need doctors poking and prying. Can we talk about something else?" She pulled a face as she stretched her legs back out behind Liara. "I am prone to emotional outburst at the moment, and I'm sure Garrus is tired of the crying."

"Ok, but I was also asking Garrus." The Asari rounded on him, as usual her piercing gaze making whomever it fell on uncomfortable.

"Can I ditto what she said?" He fiddled with the fabric on his cowl, moving his weight to his stronger left leg. Shepard reached out and took his hand in hers. "Better now that she's awake in some ways, worse in others. I have a couple of new ones."

Splitting her scrutiny between the two of them for a few moments, Liara nodded again, seeming to believe them. "You're both remarkably blasé about this, I have to say. It's making me feel… I don't know, like a coward, I guess."

"Military." One grunted.

"Turian." Supplied the other.

"Don't get me wrong." Shepard went on, and sensing that Liara still needed a little support, shifted sideways and motioned for her to come over for a cuddle. For a while now, it had felt like she was the younger (or older? She was never sure) sister she'd never had. "It's shit. It's outright shit through and through. There are days when I feel absolutely devastated and raw. I feel like I should have done more. I feel like I… like I let a lot of people die needlessly." Her mind wandered to EDI and the Geth again, to Mordin and Thane, both of whom, though on their way out already, should have had more time with their loved ones. "I feel like I don't deserve to be here, to have what I have... Like I don't even want to get out of bed in the morning or eat."

Garrus took up her perch by their feet and continued where Shepard was faltering. "But then you have days where you get a message or a ping from someone, or you watch the news and see all the effort people are going to, and it just reminds you of everything you'd accomplished. Of all the good there still is left in the world. You hear from a loved one, or, if you're very lucky like we are, you wake up and see them there… and it's like… it's like a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Like seeing the surface when you feel like you're drowning. It doesn't make all the crap go away, not by a long shot. But it-" He stopped, his vivid blue eyes searching Shepards face. "well, it-"

"It makes it all bearable." She finished for him, meeting his eyes, a look of calm he had missed seeing evident in her whole body, as she absently drew circles on Liara's shoulder as she held her. "It gives you the strength to carry on. To shoulder it all and live your life regardless. It reminds you that there are better things to come. More things to live for."

Liara hadn't missed that the last part of the exchange was had been as much for the two of them as it had been for her and hugged Shepard even more tightly. "I miss this. I miss everyone. Is it… Is it bad I don't want to go home to Thessia? I just want to go back to the Normandy. That's my real home."

"Know the feeling." Garrus laughed. "I wake up here some mornings, maybe after a particularly bad night-"

"-And you think, 'I wonder if the Thanix Canon needs any calibrations'" Liara interrupted, putting on a deep mocking voice and breaking into a short fit of laugher. The Turian clicked his mandibles at her with a grumble and gave her their version of the finger that Shepard was becoming well acquainted to.

Shepard grinned, and Liara got up and stretched her legs by pacing a little. "A little bird told me, and that bird might have been named Lawson, that she's negotiating to have you out of here soon. Either as soon as you're more stable on your feet or you can be persuaded to take the crutches."

That grin quickly changed to a scowl. "Medical Exoskeleton. The bird and I have had this debate."

"You can't live in armour, Shepard." Liara reasoned.

"Can and will. I will consider that a challenge."

Garrus rolled his eyes and pulled her legs back over his lap, resuming the usual massage to try to ease her pain a little. "It's no use, Liara. I've tried. I think eventually she'll cave through boredom or win through stubbornness, but there's not a damn thing anyone can do to persuade her in the mean time."

"Well if you'd let me have some weights in here, I could work on getting my upper body strength back and merrily conduct the rest of my days pulling myself around, or swinging from doorway to doorway like a chimp." She drawled sarcastically, flexing her arms and pouting at them. "Pathetic, look at that."

They both frowned, not quite getting all of the reference.

"A pyjak. It's an animal like a pyjack." She huffed. "Aliens…"

Shaking her head, Liara continued. "Anyway, that wasn't actually what I wanted to say. What I wanted to ask is where are you going from here? Do you have a place to stay?"

Something in the body language of the Asari as she paced holding her hands behind her, stood straight and controlled, told her that she had done some snooping she was keen to share the results of. "I'm gathering that you know more than I do. Judging by what I've heard through Garrus, their visits and whispered plans were made for me while I was unconscious, and they've already decided I agree."

"You always do this." Liara moaned. "You never let me have a dramatic reveal."

"I didn't realise that people became the Shadow Broker for the attention." Garrus observed with a smirk in the form of very widely splayed mandibles and raised brow plates, his head tilted. This earned him a dirty look.

"Ha. Ha." She shot back. "You guys are the only people I get to do this with; you have to humour me a little. Anyway, yes, as it happens. The Alliance really needs to up their encryption. It was almost embarrassingly easy to find out, it's a wonder there are no media rumours."

"Tell us what you know, oh wise one"

This time, Shepard was the one who earned the dirty look. "Firstly, they're planning a ceremony in honour of the dead, in particular some high ranking officials such as Anderson, which involves a couple of promotions and the distribution of a good number of Star of Terras. A number something like what the crew of the Normandy would have been placed at before the battle. Furthermore, and this is something I wondered at after talking to Garrus a little about where everyone is, they have kept everyone very close to Earth, non-human and human alike, which I think explains the medals. I would hazard a guess that the promotions are yourself and Kaidan. I would start thinking on a speech."

A weird mix of pride, resentment and anxiety flooded her and she groaned. Of course it was an honour, but there were still those feelings she had dragging her back down from that high that she was being raised up on a mound of bodies, the blood for which would ever stain her hands. And that was even without the inherent dislike of the weird blend of military ceremony, political ceremony and public ceremony. "Thanks for the heads up, I guess." She said at length. That one was going to take a lot of careful consideration. At least she would have more time to prepare than she Alliance and Hackett seemed likely to give her.

"You're not pleased to be promoted?" Garrus asked, curiously.

"Of course I am, I've been waiting to be a Captain since before they gave me the Normandy." She grinned at the thought of officially having her own ship. "And I know you're going to tell me that after all I've done, I deserve this, but right now I am in no mood to be a pawn in whatever scheme they're running at the moment. Hell, I'm never in any mood, but I could tolerate it before. Lord knows right now I don't feel like having my praises sung either. I need a bit more space to hate myself and get that out the way, I think."

"You're going to like this next part even less, then." Liara winced, biting her lip.

Shepard grimaced and took a deep breath. "Hit me with it."

"The repairs to the Normandy are in preparation for a very loosely planned Victory March. Along with a few other flagships that are still space worthy, the minute there are a few relays ready and more underway, they want to take her and her yet-unnamed-but-guessable crew to the major colonies and settlements where survivors have been recognised of all the different species. Widely televised, Allers' name is all over it thanks to her stint aboard before." The Asari paused, thinking. "It reminds me of something Traynor said while we were repairing the Normandy. They're pouring everything into making you their poster girl."

Her hand subconsciously reached for the scarred skin on the side of her face, and she swallowed the lump in her throat, but didn't shift it. "Fuck."

"I don't know that it will go ahead, yet, there are mixed ideas about where you should go from here. There are conflicting messages floating around that it's too soon yet, and that the home worlds of those that came together for the final fight should do, and more yet from some sympathetic voices who would like Hackett to remember that you're a person, not an idea." She shrugged, trying to downplay the whole idea a little. "Don't get yourself worked up about it, Shepard. What I really mean by telling you all this is that you need to be ready to make a stand for yourself and be who you want to be in light of all this. You've played everything by their rules and you've earned yourself the right to chose what you want from here on in."

Shepard nodded mutely. One ceremony would be bad enough, but to do those successively? To make the same generic speech over and over again, with minor fixes to make it seem relevant to where she was would be the reverse of everything they were expecting her to stand for. The idea didn't sit well.

And yet, in the back of her mind, the idea of changing the world and not doing it down the barrel of a gun appealed to her. Though it had been stressful to get everyone to work together under such intense pressure during the war, and she had wanted to cave in the skulls of various different races in their own turn, her own included, the satisfaction at the end of every day she successfully won them over or came to a compromise was incomparable to any sense of victory she had ever felt.

As a Vanguard for the Alliance, for as long as she remembered she had run on the adrenaline rush, the thrill of beating down all who opposed her to come to the battle's bloody crescendo. Though she felt now that she had seen enough death, at her own hands and at those of the reapers, to last her a life time, the sense of duty didn't end there. Things could be better. She wanted to help make them better.

"It's a lot to think about." She said at length. "I haven't decided where my future lies yet. I'm not sure that I'm ready to lay down arms yet, but I don't know that I want to take them back up either, in whatever sense of the phrase." Shepard glanced up at Garrus, who was eyeing her with the same anxiety she'd had when she asked him about his career plans. "It's not a decision I want to make alone either. We'll wait until we know what the Hierarchy wants of Garrus first, I think. Though, if I am still a Spectre I may have to kick up a bit of a fuss and pull some strings to get us something that works for us both."

That seemed to calm him considerably, and his shoulders visibly relaxed. Liara shook her head again and rolled her eyes. "Again, Shepard: You saved the galaxy. I don't think you'd even need Spectre status to kick up a fuss and get what you want."

"Thank you for telling me, Liara." She smiled. "You've clearly gone to a lot of work to be able to tell me this, and I appreciate it. I'm not your Commander anymore, you know. I feel guilty for all the trouble you've gone to."

"You will _always_ be my Commander." She declared, looking to Garrus. "Commander to all of us. But more than that, you're a friend. You've been there for me too, Shepard. It was no trouble."

When she finished, however, she did not seem finished. "There's more." Shepard asked apprehensively, chewing the inside of her cheek.

"It's not bad news. Or concerning news." Liara sat herself heavily back on the bed, leaning back on her hands. "I'm just not sure I should be telling you this. I feel weird that I even know it."

"Well, you can't leave it hanging there like that." Garrus reasoned.

Heaving a heavy sigh, the Asari closed her eyes, before snapping them open and dived in. "The Normandy won't be ready for some time yet. I mean, technically, she's able to fly, most of her systems are up, she's parked happily at the Sol Relay where she's having more in depth technical work done. She's also hidden there out of the way, rather than in dry dock, because-"

"Because they're trying to get EDI back up and running, Garrus told me." She swallowed again, pushing back down the gaping hole that opened itself up in her chest whenever she thought about the AI, bleeding into her every thought. "Obviously we all want her back, we all need her back, but why do the Alliance care?"

"She's both part of the ship and a crew member. She's a part of the Normandy legend. She's the ultimate in showing that we can rebuild anything, don't you think?" Liara said, as if it were obvious. "That's still not my point. We can go into it later, if you like. My point is, is that you can't go back there when you leave."

"So where am I going?" Shepard asked, getting slightly impatient.

"Well, I was running some searches on you and some searches on property concurrently, mutli-tasking, you know? I had been planning to buy you both a little place to go." She flushed slightly at this confession, her cheeks tinged with purple. "Well, I must have been tired or something, because something came up, accidentally combined the searches. I found… well… I found Anderson's will."

Shepard's heart stopped. She gripped the edges of the mattress fiercly.

"I shouldn't have watched it but I... I couldn't help myself. I don't know why they haven't released it yet, but I suspect they are trying to contact Kahlee Sanders." She paused and stopped, rubbing her hands in front of her, nervously. "I _may_ have given them a push in the right direction. I expect you'll hear more soon."

"Tell me anyway." Shepard pushed. She needed to know. She felt like she couldn't breathe. He had given her the Citadel apartment. What more could he have left her?"

"Aside from a set portion of his estate, in the absence of children you've been left his family home. Kahlee received his house in London. I went and had a look myself. It's pretty far out into the country, though not the middle of nowhere, so it is more or less untouched. The London house was a lot more beaten up, but it is also something that has been brought to Alliance attention with a small package of credits and resources to renovate the block it is in." Liara stopped playing with her hands and looked up. "I think they will probably send you there. If you don't hear soon, I have measures in place to make sure the will should come to light."

Shepard didn't say anything, she just stared blankly ahead of herself, shutting off. Garrus frowned, plates pulled tight and gently moved her legs off him, standing up. "I think maybe it's time for her to get some rest. Thank you for coming by, it means a lot to her. To both of us." He put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her in again, continuing more quietly, in spite of knowing Shepard was beyond listening now. "Will you visit us again tomorrow? She'll be better company once the initial catch up is out of the way. Every new visitor brings new things for her to process and come to terms with."

Eyes widening, Liara glanced back to Shepard in alarm. "Goddess, I didn't mean to upset her, I just-"

"No! No, it's not that." He reassured her, releasing her and giving a last pat on the shoulder. "She likes to hear, it does put her mind at ease. You've given her a lot of things to consider for the future, and being able to think about the future is always a good thing when you're feeling stuck with the past. It's just still a struggle."

They made their goodbyes, and promised to see eachother the next day. The moment the door was closed, Garrus returned to her bedside and brushed his mouth plates against her forehead before resting his own against the spot. "I've heard you when you're sleeping. I know Anderson is a sore spot for you. Survivors guilt?"

She allowed him to climb into the bed next to her and tucked herself along the contours of his body, fingers finding the comforting grooves between plates and small areas of skin, eliciting the relaxing hum and purr she needed to hear and feel. One of his hands cradled the back of her head, gently scratching her scalp. "I killed him."

This was one of the rare things he had actually been able to wheedle out of her, not through any skill or the level of trust between them, but because it was one of the things that, should she wake hysterical about, she absolutely could not come to terms with. "Shush now, sweetheart. The Illusive Man killed him. The _Reapers_killed him. I know you, Jane. There is no way you would ever pull that trigger, and when you tell me you fought it will every inch of yourself, I believe you."

"He was like a father to me." She whispered her voice deadpan. "He left me his family home. A home I have because I killed him."

"We don't have to go there. I'll find us someplace else." He said simply. "There are always other options, Jane."

She seemed to weigh that up a while, hands coming to rest to work on his waist. As nice as that was, Garrus soon needed to gently move her hands away from that particular area before a certain set of plates became any looser, so she amused herself with his back instead.

"No." Shepard said at length. "I can't hide from it. Whatever happened up there, I don't want him to have died for nothing. He went up that beam for the same reason I did: he wanted to finish it. He wanted to save us all, and I couldn't have done it without him. He wanted me to have this house, to have a life after all this, even if he wasn't there to see it. I wouldn't be doing right by him and his sacrifice to ignore that."

Lifting her head, she gently kissed the underside of a mandible, and he took a deep breath as she teased the sensitive skin there before moving his head again. "You're going out of your way to be a tease while I'm trying to do right by you, woman."

"You always do right by me." He could feel her smile, her breath hot on his neck. "But you want to know something good about this, if Liara is right?"

She withdrew a little and took his face in the hand they weren't laying on, pressing their foreheads together again. "When I get out of here we have a home."

"You have a house." He corrected.

"No, Garrus. I meant what I said there. We have a home."

He felt himself beaming back at her and pulled her in close again, holding her tightly.

"Those crutches starting to sound any more appealing yet?" He asked above her head.

"I don't know, Garrus. Considering buying me a new set of Medical Exoskeleton armour yet?" She countered.

Groaning loudly, he dug his talons into her shoulder enough to give a pinch. "Spirits help us both against the stubbornness of Humans and Turians."


End file.
